Appearing on Fox Business News on Friday afternoon, Republican political guru Karl Rove went from giving advice to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump to focus on his campaign and not on personal slights, to launching a angry tirade after a Fox host suggested Trump should “hit back.”

After saying Trump has a precious “88 days left” to correct the downward spiral of wasting time on petty grievances the nominee can’t seem to ignore, host Charles Payne said that he understood “as a New Yorker” Trump’s need to “punch back.”

The former George W. Bush chief-of-staff grew visibly aggravated and launched into an increasingly angry tirade questioning whether Trump “wants to win.”

“Yeah, well, you know what?” Rove began. “If he does that between now and the election, what do you think is going to happen? The Clinton campaign is going to provoke him everyday to stay off of message. And he is going to fall for all of these things and waste valuable time. Does he want to win or does he want to respond? If he wants to be the New Yorker and punch back at everybody who comes his way — fine! That’s an open invitation for everybody to come his way with things like this.”

Rove was not done.

“He as 88 days to make his case,” he continued. “He has squandered the last three weeks by responding to the Gold Star mother. The day after he had his presidential nomination, he became the official nominee of the Republican Party. The first news conference he had was not devoted to laying out the case against Hillary Clinton or bashing Barack Obama or laying out what he wants to do as president. It’s renewing and revisiting all of things he said about Ted Cruz, who was yesterday’s news at that point!”

“And why? He felt compelled to do it. He ought to get control of his impulses and keep focused on the main target. Otherwise you’re going to have more of these Republicans saying ‘why do we want to stand by this guy when he just keeps going after the wrong target.'”

About the Author

Tom Boggioni is based in the quaint seaside community of Pacific Beach in less quaint San Diego. He writes about politics, media, culture, and other annoyances. Mostly he spends his days at the beach gazing at the horizon waiting for the end of the world, or the sun to go down. Whichever comes first.